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Creative specs

26 April 2023

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Native ads creative specs

MSN Native

Overview

Native ads allow the advertiser to immerse their brand within the MSN sites to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, CTR, CPA, and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple. Upload an image, logo, copy, and URL into the AppNexus console (or integrated bidder) and the technology formats your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.


Deliverables

Ad components
File Type
Dimensions
Max File Size
Main Image
GIF, JPEG or PNG
Aspect Ratio 1.91:1
200 KB
Logo
GIF, JPEG or PNG
Aspect Ratio 1:1
600 KB
Title
Text
25 characters max
 
Sponsor (Brand)
Text
< 25 characters
 
URL
Text
 
 

Creative best practices for Programmatic Native

  • Turbo-charge your call-to-action: Immediately highlight your main point with eye-catching wording to create urgency and drive engagement.
  • Choose compelling images: People, particularly shown experiencing an emotion associated with your headline, increase impact. Also, avoid text overlays on image assets.
  • Center main content: Avoid clutter and ensure important visual elements, particularly people, are centered in your image asset.
  • Be bold with color: Use vibrant colors to create focus and interest in your native ads.

Example

MSN Homepage PC Web

example of native ads on MSN homepage

Outlook Native

Overview

Native ads allow the advertiser to immerse their brand within the Outlook site to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, CTR, CPA, and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple. Upload an image, logo, copy, and URL into the AppNexus console (or integrated bidder) and the technology formats your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.


Deliverables

Ad components
Type
Characters
Description
Text
No character limit
(first 40 characters display)
Title
Text
No character limit
(first 38 characters display)
Sponsor (Brand)
Text
< 25 characters
Icon
JPG
Optional: (sizes)
150x150
300x300
100x100
50x50
URL
 
No character limit

Creative Best Practice - Turbo-charge your call-to-action: Immediately highlight your main point with eye-catching wording to create urgency and drive engagement.


Examples

Outlook PC Web

Outlook for PC Web


Outlook Mobile Web

Outlook for Mobile Web

Office App Native

Overview

Microsoft Office lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps. Advertisers can reach their engagement goals through user interaction with native ads.

Deliverables

Ad components
Type
Text
Title
Text
No character limit
(first 40 characters display)
Description
Text
No character limit
(first 38 characters display)
Icon/Image
JPG
Home / Document ads: 1024x64, image icon 36x36px

MRU Card View Ads: 1024x64, image icon 40x40px
Example of Office App Native ads.

Microsoft Audience Network

Overview

Microsoft Audience Ads allow you to immerse your brand within publisher sites to reach the right audience, at the right time, within the right context. This winning combination drives engagement, click-through rate (CTR), cost per acquisition (CPA) and more to enhance your campaign performance.

Getting started is simple.

  • For Image Based Ads: Upload an image, copy and a URL into Bing Ads, and Bing Ads formats your content to match the unique look and feel of the publisher site, whether it's displayed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
  • For Video Ads: Upload your video creative via file or a link to where your video assets can be retrieved (ie. WAV, MOV, MP4 etc…). Include headlines, ad text, and audience details and Bing Ads will match the look and feel of the publisher site. Note, Video Ads are currently in closed beta; so may not available yet to all advertisers. Please get in touch with your account team to know more.

Deliverables

Ad components
File type
Dimensions
Image
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x628 or higher
Minimum: 703x368
Short headline
Text
30 characters max
Long headline
Text
90 characters max
Ad text
Text
90 characters max
Business name
Text
25 characters max
URL
Text
1024 characters max
Mobile URL
Text
1024 characters max

Creative Best Practices for Audience Ads

  • Images are recommended to have little or no text for maximum flexibility.
  • Some publishers prohibit the use of embedded text within images.
  • Images can be cropped or used with headline overlays, which can result in issues if the image is text heavy.
  • If text is required (e.g., legally required/logo issues):
    • Consider moving the text to the headlines instead of including in the image.
    • Use fewer words.
    • Use smaller font size.
    • Keep text centered.
    • Be sure to leverage the preview tool in the UI.
  • Before submitting, ensure images and text look as expected in all ad preview formats using the preview tool in the UI and ensure that there is no text overlay.
  • The image must be clearly relevant to the product or service being advertised.
  • Image assets used for Audience ads share the same dimensions as Google Display Network, Facebook Audience Network and Yahoo Gemini.

Safe Areas

Publishers place “sponsored” or “ad” icons typically near the bottom of the image along with the headline and business name text. This should be considered when choosing image content.

Audience ads support individual image cropping to support all aspect ratios for each ad experience. Use of the Audience ads preview tool is important to validate each ad experience.

aspect ratio examples

Alternatively, if cropping an individual aspect ratio isn’t enough to resolve issues in the ad preview, then you also have the option to choose a different image for an individual aspect ratio. If you choose to upload an image for an individual aspect ratio, please keep in mind the below image restrictions:

Aspect ratio
File type
Dimensions
1.91:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x628 or higher
Minimum: 703x368
1.78:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x674 or higher
Minimum: 624x350
1.72:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x698 or higher
Minimum: 300x174
1.69:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x710 or higher
Minimum: 622x368
1.55:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x774 or higher
Minimum: 300x194
1.5:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x800 or higher
Minimum: 300x200
1.33:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x902 or higher
Minimum: 100x75
1:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1200x1200 or higher
Minimum: 300x300
0.93:1
JPEG or PNG
Recommended: 1116x1200 or higher
Minimum: 311x333

Ad Variants

Audience Network Wide Image (1:91:1)

Example of Audience Network Wide Image

Edge single carousel (1:78:1)

Example of edge single carousel

Edge medium headline (1:72:1)

Example of Edge medium headline

MSN single carousel (1:69:1)

Example of MSN single carousel

MSN medium headline (1.55:1)

Example of MSN medium headline

MSN in-article ad (1.5:1)

Example of MSN in-article ad

MSN small headline (1.33:1)

Example of MSN small headline

Audience Network Square Image (1:1)

Example of Audience Network Square Image

MSN double carousel (0.93:1)

Example of MSN double carousel

Outlook web desktop (text)

Example of Outlook web desktop (text)

Outlook web mobile (text)

Example of Outlook web mobile (text)


Example

MSN homepage PC web

Example of ads on MSN homepage


Video based ad deliverables

Audience Outstream Video

Platforms
Desktop
Player Size
480x270 (outstream)
Video Ad Length
6-120 seconds max
Video Ad Format
FLV, WAV, MOV, MP4, WMV, MPEG2-PS, MPEG2-TS, 3GP, MXF, GXF, AVI
File Size
10GB Max
Ratio
16:9
Audio Settings
196 kbps @ 44.1 kHz AAC recommended.
Resolution
1280x720 @ 3000 kbps recommended. 480x720 minimum.
Video Caption
Not supported
Video Sound
Recommended
Short Headline
30 characters max
Long Headline
90 characters max
Ad Text
90 characters max
Business Name
25 characters max
URL
1024 characters max
Mobile URL
1024 characters max
Viewability metrics
50 percent of video pixels in-view for at least 2 seconds for video ads (Industry standard)

Example

Example of a video ad